False Convictions

26

BALLOONS RESTAURANT sat just around the corner in a cramped row of houses on Wall Street facing the forty-foot-high concrete barrier that no convict had ever gotten over. The single escape in the history of the wall had been a murderer who found an old overflow pipe in the bowels of the prison’s ancient underground maze, and he’d gone under it. The restaurant looked like its neighbors except the front room had been blown open into one big space with a well-worn wooden bar and two large picture windows facing the wall. Graham waited for Casey at one of the tables crowded into the paneled back room. When he looked up and saw her, he said something she couldn’t hear into his cell phone before snapping it shut and standing to pull out a chair for her.

“I’m impressed,” he said, sitting back down on the other side of the small round table and signaling a waitress.

“You’re the one who fast-tracked the DNA analysis,” she said, removing her napkin from the paper place mat, a map of the red, white, and green boot of Italy. She flipped open the napkin and placed it in her lap.

“Anyone can load up a congressman with campaign contributions and push the red button,” Graham said. “By the way, Marty’s held up at the office.”

They ordered sparkling water and lemons from the waitress and listened to the lunch specials before Casey said, “There’ve been a lot of strange twists in this case, a lot of buttons pushed.”

Graham shrugged and rubbed the stubble that had already begun to appear on his chin. “I like pushing buttons.”

“I had a law professor use me to beat a murder rap, once,” she said. “He liked to push people’s buttons.”

Graham grinned. “Didn’t he butcher his victims and eat their gall bladders?”

“He didn’t start out that way.”

“You said you had to get back to your clinic. All I’m doing is trying to make you happy. You’re not going to hold that against me, are you?” Graham asked, raising his thick eyebrows.

She looked into his eyes. They got big, and softly he said, “Most men look at something and think of all the reasons why they can’t have it. Everything I look at, I ask, ‘Why not?’ That’s how I look at everything, even you.”

Before Casey could answer, his eyes jumped over her shoulder toward the doorway that led through the front room and the bar. He reached out his hand and Casey spun her head to see Ralph handing a manila envelope to him across their table. The driver’s red-rimmed eyes were puffy, he needed a shave, and the color was gone from his face.

“Got it,” Ralph said, then nodded to Casey before turning and disappearing through the doorway.

Graham sat back in his chair and opened the envelope, examining the papers. “Talk about strange twists.”

Casey picked up the spent lemon wedge and sucked on it as he pushed the papers her way. She examined the paper on top, a copy of a vehicle registration from 1988, a white BMW 750i.

“Nelson Rivers,” she said, reading, then looked up at Graham. “Not related to the former DA?”

Graham clamped his mouth shut, expressionless, and shrugged. Casey continued to sift through the papers. Nelson Rivers was the son of Patricia Rivers, the former DA who now sat on the New York State Fourth Circuit Appellate Court in Rochester. One of the papers was a copied page from the Auburn Citizen from 1987, a photo of a handsome young man and a stunning blonde, the junior prom king and queen from Auburn High School, Nelson Rivers and Cassandra Thornton.

“He was her boyfriend,” Casey said aloud, “and he drove a white BMW at the age of nineteen? Is he still around?”

Graham nodded at the papers. She kept going.

“A phone bill in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos islands?” she said, examining the last couple sheets of paper. “A dive charter. In business since 1990. Captain N. W. Rivers? This fat guy with the beard is him?”

“You’ve been saying all along that you needed more than just the DNA, right?” Graham said. “An alternative theory for the court? Otherwise they’d fight you tooth and nail. Well.”

“And you wanted some media,” Casey said. “Can you say ‘feeding frenzy’?”

Graham nodded solemnly.

“How did Ralph find him?” Casey asked.

“It’s what he does.”

“And I thought he was slacking on the registration,” she said, stuffing the papers back into the envelope and patting it with affection.

“One thing you never have to worry about with Ralph,” he said.

“I’m sorry about all the suspicion,” Casey said.

“Should we order?”

Casey had an arugula salad and a small side of pasta while Graham ate a chicken dish with peppers and red sauce as they discussed how to proceed.

“I’d like to get the media going on this,” Graham said. “Put some of it out there like a regular Freedom Project press release, get a little traction in the local paper, then leak some of the things about the judge to a national or two, prime the pump. Then we can start leveraging a couple shows against each other to lock in the biggest one we can get for the big story.”

“What about American Sunday?” Casey asked, wondering again where Jake had gotten to. “Obviously, you’ve got connections there.”

“Connections?”

“Well, they know the story.”

“I’d like to use Sunday to land Sixty Minutes or Dateline,” he said. “Or at least Twenty/Twenty. I’ve got a contact who knows Steve Kroft. If they know that Sunday is interested but that we’ll give them the exclusive with you and me and Dwayne if they commit, I think we’ll stand a chance.”

“Don’t you want to give it to American Sunday, though?”

“Why would we give it to a show with two million viewers when we could have twelve?”

“Right,” Casey said, pausing for a moment. “What I’d really like is to have this guy Rivers’s DNA. Proving the sample isn’t Dwayne’s is good, but if we can prove it belongs to Nelson Rivers? The judge would probably beat us to the jail with a key. Now, that’s a story.”

“I agree, but I want the pump primed,” Graham said with an expression that let Casey know he’d have his way.

“Okay, but even if we work the media, I still wish we could get Rivers’s DNA sooner than later,” Casey said. “Trust me, it will wrap this whole thing up quick if we do and it matches.”

“Okay, so let’s go get it,” Graham said.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I know a great place in Turks and Caicos right on the beach,” he said. “We could take a couple days and enjoy it while we’re figuring a way to get a sample from Rivers. I’ve got a friend down there who’s a cop. He’ll help. Oh, come on, it’ll take that long for the lab to finish with the hospital swabs, anyway. What do you think?”

Casey frowned.

“Did I mention separate rooms?” Graham said. “Hell, the place I’m thinking of has a whole separate pool house. You don’t even have to be under the same roof with me if you don’t want. What do you think?”

“I think I’ve got to get back to my clinic,” she said.

“Tomorrow’s Friday,” he said, “then the weekend.”

Casey thought for a moment, then said, “I think it was two years ago I went to a conference in San Diego and spent an afternoon on Mission Beach. I got sand in my hair and bought a soggy fish taco. That’s been about it.”

“See? All work and no play,” Graham said. “I know a place that pulls the lobsters out of a trapdoor in the floor. It’s built on a pier and they grill them with rum. Like nothing you’ve tasted.”

“Business first,” she said. “I want that DNA.”

“Okay,” Graham said, nodding enthusiastically. “We can hire the guy’s boat. I’ll have my cop friend join us and get the spit off his snorkel or a soda bottle or something, preserve the chain of evidence, and we’ve got it.”

“All the right moves,” she said.

“Hey, I’m making this up as I go,” he said. “I can’t help it if I’m good.”

Casey eyed him and reluctantly said, “You’re not bad.”

“Do you dive?”

“Not for a while, but I got certified in college.”

“So, we’re on?”

“Let me check in on a couple things,” she said. “I’ve got a conference call in about twenty minutes with my staff. I’ll let you know for sure later.”